


Maryam what's happening

by Imherefinally



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Consensual Mind Control, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Manipul8tion, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 15:39:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19379680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imherefinally/pseuds/Imherefinally
Summary: Terezi was better at softening blows than Vriska, so Rose sparred with her more often. That’s all Kanaya can recall about the situation she’s in. The phrase bounces around, getting bigger and bigger as her body carries on mechanically without her. It’s a practiced stitch, one she’s done on many many sewing projects, on stuffed slazzers, on wounds, the blood squeezing gushing flowing between her fingers as the thread winds between them. The wound closes in bursts with every pull of the needle, just like the skirt she was just working on.She’s not working on it now, but she’s still stitching. What’s going on?





	Maryam what's happening

Terezi was better at softening blows than Vriska, so Rose sparred with her more often. That’s all Kanaya can recall about the situation she’s in. The phrase bounces around, getting bigger and bigger as her body carries on mechanically without her. It’s a practiced stitch, one she’s done on many many sewing projects, on stuffed slazzers, on wounds, the blood squeezing gushing flowing between her fingers as the thread winds between them. The wound closes in bursts with every pull of the needle, just like the skirt she was just working on.

 

She’s not working on it now, but she’s still stitching. What’s going on?

 

There’s silence, complete silence in her thoughts and her head. Then there’s a wave crashing over her, static so loud she can’t even hear what someone is saying right in her ear.

 

She knows that she knows what’s going on, but the static is so intense, and she can’t reach past it as it blankets her senses thicker and thicker. A hand squeezes her wrist and she’s forced to drop the needle. Without the methodical motion the wave breaks and there’s nothing to stop her from wildly careening into panic.

 

She breathes a little harder as she looks around. Her hands are stained with candy red, and a thread hangs loosely between her index finger and thumb. The needle dangles and catches the light.

 

The hand on her wrist relaxes, but doesn’t go away. She focuses on the person it’s attached to. Terezi. She moves to complete the stitch and close it off but the hand on her wrist tightens and another one claims her far shoulder, stopping her. It wants her to stop, so she complies.

 

She feels the need, just, the need to do something and it burns at her to stay still and they’re talking to her and touching her and she just flinches from the contact like it burns and it burns and her body is so far away from whatever is happening and she’s happy just happy to slip away entirely and let her body operate without her, the static is unbearable just unbearable and she wishes she could disappear out of her body but she’s just so painfully present and painfully-

 

It rings out in her like a gunshot went off down the hall way. She shudders like a bell, and can’t stop the tears from running down when it happens. When she finds out what happened.

 

Rose and Terezi were sparring, Vriska was watching and so was she, and something led to something and a wound opened up on Rose’s thigh and the noise she made the noise she made the-

 

Her body is caught, catatonic. Every muscle is seized up and she’s shaking and her head rolls back and she can’t take this she can’t-

 

Someone catches her, and she knows by the smell that it’s Vriska. Kanaya hisses in a deep breath, and lets it out. She lets her body relax a little bit but another wave hits her and she knows they’ll keep coming-

 

“Vriska”

 

She looks up at her, tear stains running down her face, and asks with her eyes what she can’t with words. She’s so vulnerable when she’s like this, Vriska thinks, and there was a promise she made to her once, and she’s a little worried but she’s not a fucking pussy and DEFINITELY not a dick. So here goes.

 

Vriska reaches out with her mind after explaining to Rose and Terezi. She feels the static like a physical wall, and slowly ramps up the intensity of their connection until she breaks through.

 

She promised to try, not to succeed no that would just be stupid, she promised to try and help Kanaya when she’s like this. It had happened before, Kanaya always shrugged it off or hid herself away before it got bad, but a confrontation or two changed her mind. She can’t really talk when the static swamps her, but maybe if Vriska could do something…

 

It was worth a shot, anyways.

 

Fighting through the static took, quite a lot of effort, actually. Vriska thinks she isn’t one to brag but, she’s pretty fucking good at this. Really good. She can pilot someone’s whole body, psionics and all, from halfway across the globe. But precision is hard, and this was the most precise thing she’s ever attempted.

 

A thin blue ring lights around Kanaya’s pupils as the muscles in her face relax. She slides into the comfortable position of just, letting someone else take her burden. Her memories clear up, it’s easier to think, and she’s sure she has no expression on her face but she just can’t seem to care.

 

Tears still stream down her face, and tears start flowing out of Vriska too as she taps into the emotions bucking wildly to get out of her grip, but she keeps her grip. It hurts.

 

Kanaya starts speaking from a place that’s far away, and she can hardly feel the hands that hold her. She’s talking, remembering something that makes her shake whenever she thinks about it. Something that shakes her to her very core and splits her mind open like a shell when she hears the noise the noise the noise-

 

The noise of her lusus screaming. It happened one night when she was young, but not too young. She woke up at night, hearing the sounds of some undead that would usually just fall into the traps she set the morning before. But it kept going, the noise, it wasn’t normal, and she got the attention of her sleeping lusus and went back to sleeping sewing reading-

 

She was reading when it happened.

 

The shriek shook her to her core. It was terrifying. More than terrifying, it stripped her down to only her survival instincts, what she was without any thought at all, doing only what had to be done.

 

She hid in a closet. Wave after wave of undead crashed against her lusus, and her lusus screamed, screamed. Time ceased to work, it was just her, her body drawn into itself to be as small as possible. It was the noise the noise the noise-

 

It was her back against her dresser, trying to squeeze herself into the corner, out of sight. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t cover her ears, no, she had to listen, absorb a lethal dose of that noise that noise that fucking noise-

 

She hears it, you know, she hears it absolutely everywhere. She hears it in the close of a door, a cabinet, she hears it in laughs, in cries, and she hears it in complete and utter silence.

 

It follows her.

 

It chases her.

 

It’s safe enough to go outside and her lusus is screaming, screaming. A huge wound is open on its back; she sees from the window. It’s automatic, her body grabs the needle, the thread, everything else she needs. She grabs a snack, something to feed her lusus after.

 

She rushes down, quickly and quietly, like they teach in those fire drills that no one can ever replicate in a real emergency. She can and she does. It’s automatic. It’s out of her control.

 

She kneels by her fallen lusus, and it looks to her eyes, for reassurance, to be reassured. Her eyes are dead, completely. Stiff hands work efficiently at the wound. Disinfect. Stitch. Dress. Repeat. Over and over all over its body and her hands are stained with jade and her numb fingers work without her and she’s not seeing what’s in front of her it’s not real not real it can’t be real, she can’t even think and the static overcomes her and its a relief, it’s such a fucking relief and she leans into it and it envelops her and she sits there while the lusus eats and she’s not there she’s off-

 

She’s off somewhere else.

 

And she slowly returns to reality. It takes time, it takes a really long time. Vriska disengages and the static is at a gentle hum, enough to leave her alone for now. She sees the blood the blood the-

 

She takes a breath. She lets it out and takes another. And it chains like that, slowly moving from one breath to another and returning feeling to her body. It won’t be the last time this happens. Vriska won’t always be there. It’s nice, though, to feel her. To feel her shirt and her hair and her hands. And she feels Terezi, too, encircling her with both arms and squeezing with such a pleasing pressure. She feels Rose resting on her shoulder, tracing a finger up her arm, and down.

 

Up, and down. Up, and down. She syncs her breathing to the rhythmic strokes and lets her eyes close and, the tears stop. But they don’t they don’t they don’t…

 

She’s sobbing now, palms flat over her eyes and how could this have happened to her, why? Why did this happen why did her brain fuck it up so hard why does it invade her every waking day why does she think about it over and over and why can’t she stop? Why can’t she stop…

 

Terezi squeezes tighter, and Kanaya wraps her arms around her and she runs a cool hand over her neck, slowly going back and forth, back and forth.

 

She didn’t deserve it; she knows it, but she can’t believe it. She just can’t.

 

She can only hold tighter and cling to reality in the little things. The way her skirt crinkles against the hug, the loose but present prick of Terezi’s claws on her skin, the way their horns bump together. It sends a tiny impact into her skull, like tapping on teeth. She does it again, and again and again, and it makes her feel better.

 

It’s going to get better, slowly, and it’ll get worse and it’ll get better, and she’ll keep living and living and living…

 

Her thoughts trail off in the rhythmic tapping of her horns against hers. It’s soothing; the sound, the impact, she feels close to her, safe. Everyone is looking at her but she’s not embarrassed. She might be later but now she feels the care in their gaze, the worry. The meddling waiting to happen, it’s nice.

 

“I could, um,”

“Yeah?”

“I could use a snack- if, if that’s ok.”

“Sure.”

 

Rose stood to get some food, and Vriska chimed in

 

“Yeah and I have a FUCKING headache!!!!!!!!”

 

Rose went to get some food some water and an ice pack.

 

When she came back Kanaya and Terezi had separated. Terezi was sitting on the couch with Vriska, teasing her and poking her temples. Kanaya sat between their legs on the floor, and after distributing the snacks Rose joined her.

 

“Did it feel good? To get it out?”

“I think so, I feel… relieved but…”

“What?”

“I know it’ll happen again, and again, this is, it’s a nice break but it’s not going to stop just because- ugh. There’s just, nothing I can do.”

“Well,” Rose took a deep breath, trying to channel the deep psychological comfort she wished to provide, “we aren’t going away. You might even get more nice breaks, and then those breaks get longer and longer and then it’s completely out of the ordinary to feel this way.”

“That’ll take years,” Kanaya let out an exhausted laugh, “maybe it won’t ever happen.”

“We’re not going away.”

 

Kanaya met Rose’s gaze, and oh my god she’s serious. She looks around and Terezi is looking her way, and so is Vriska, and they’re serious they’re all serious. No one, no one’s ever taken her seriously unless she was kicking ass or flipping tables, but they are. They all are.

 

The relief must show on her face because Vriska smiles at her, and she leans down to press a kiss to her forehead. Unsatisfied, Kanaya holds her face and presses a kiss to her lips and she tastes the salt from both of their tears.

 

She kisses Terezi, and Rose, the last one sliding into a deeper kiss that just, it makes her feel like she’s home and she’s not falling, falling she’s suspended by their love-

 

And maybe she’s waxing poetic, but maybe she deserves it, okay?


End file.
